I'm the only person I know who reads The Paris Review. So if you do, please be my friend.

About a year ago, the Review announced a new editor, Emily Nemens, in the wake of a disgraced former editor's departure--and I have to say the difference is noticeable. I'm a painfully slow reader and inconsistent at it, but The Paris Review is my way of keeping somewhat current with the latest happenings in the literary world. The visual art portfolios are always a joy to dive into as well. Prior to Ms. Nemens, I had been finding myself rather frustrated with the short stories published in each issue. I'm no literary critic, but lets just say there always seemed to be some story centered around marital and/or sexual frustration.

The last few issues (I'm always one behind) have felt fresh, exciting, and much more interesting. And it's always a challenging read, of course.

As I said in my previous post, I'm trying to shoot more between clients this month. This area has a sort of classic small town feel, and has been making a big comeback in recent years. Still, not much was happening during this day. It felt a little empty and many of my shots were missing the human element.

I don't know what it is, but I have a hard time doing any kind of street photography around where I live. Maybe because I am too familiar. Drop me off in the middle of New York City, or another place where I am a stranger among millions and I'm fine running around with my camera all day. I was born in Pomona, and even though I hardly ever go downtown I still feel weird shooting there.

These reflection shots was the one that struck the most that day. I'm continually inspired by Vivian Maier's vast body of work, only she never seemed to be bothered by shooting in her own locales.

I know I’m not the only freelance artist who experiences the slump at the start of a new year. The end of the previous year is like a mad dash to the finish line—deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. Then it’s just about nothing for January and February. I could crawl out of my skin during this time, not that I don’t have plenty to do. Here in LA the rain has been coming down and the weather not so great. The days are short and I feel like I can’t get anything done. Then March comes in I start counting down the days until we get those extra hours of daylight back. (Why do we ever give them up to begin with?) The rain still pours, but I find I have that extra bit of stamina to get through the end of each week. And with the extra daylight, I find myself pulling out these cameras I’m lucky to shoot with.

A few weeks ago I met up with my friend, actor and artist, Tomas Decurgez. We shot new portraits for his upcoming film work. He's an experienced commercial model, as you can see, but our goal was to capture a casual, sexy, essence. A few selections below.

Last year about this time we sat in a restaurant trying to celebrate. The treatments had worked. They weren’t fun by any means—he had lost all his hair, became weak and skinny, and looked nothing like himself—but they had worked. Except we weren’t feeling all that celebratory. What did the future look like with our new best friend, cancer?

I sit here now with the holiday decorations up, the festive music playing, the loss still lingering in the air as these holiday memories come back to us.

The loss has been devastating but I feel lucky. Lucky because I have memories of over 30 years locked in these photos. Physical prints cover almost every wall. Boxes of photos fill the closets and cabinets. Our photos albums are thick with stories.

I'm a big believer in the shoebox of photos, those random pictures just thrown in together. It’s times like these when the shoebox comes out. The collage of places and people is held in the hands of each person around the table laughing and crying and reminiscing.

We all have that one relative that won’t stand for a photo. “No pictures,” they always state firmly. The reasons why are buried deep in feelings of insecurity, vulnerability, or even just plain self-loathing.

I’m begging of you—tell them to just take the picture. The shoebox of photos has become the camera roll on the smartphone, except smartphones die. Hard drives fail. Computers crash. And we have a way of forgetting the cloud passwords.

Tell them to take the photo. Once you have the photo, keep it and print it. Even better, hire a guy like me to come take the photo and make it nice. Keep the photos because in the end that’s all you really have of them once they are gone.

I’m lucky. I have all the photos I could ever want after 30 years of a life shared with my dad, Bruce. If he were here now, he’d be charming as ever, surreptitiously taking your photo.

I'm not at all a fan of Standard Time, but I love the way the light shifts this time of year. I just wish the days would last a bit longer so that we could enjoy them more.

I took my camera out for a walk this afternoon into the waning golden time hours. The light was warm, and made even more amber by the SoCal skies choked with smoke. (For many people, life is a literal hell right now.) The light was so beautiful, except all of a sudden it was evening, then immediately nighttime. Little light to be had.

It's a good time of year for me to curl up with a book and disappear, but in fact I'm out there working more than I have been so far this fall. Many shoots and events for different clients. I mostly make images now, and I have to fight my own urges to just nest and not worry about it unless it's for a client.

This going to be a personal post. As my family and I head into November there are so many things to reflect on. Up until now I haven't used this blog an outlet for personal feelings. I've kept much of it to my own family circle, and have found an odd comfort in grieving publicly on social media. That is not normally my speed. I am usually a rather private person, but as some of you know, my stepdad Bruce was a larger-than-life person with a large circle of work colleagues whom he withdrew from as he got sick from cancer. My family and I felt it was appropriate to draw many of them into our circle as we dealt with his loss.

As I write this, I think of how spending so much time online reading about other people and their lives makes me want to sum things up in some pretty lesson. The Insta-lesson with a pretty sunset pic to wrap it all up. The truth is, there aren't that many neat, tidy lessons here. Loss is just as messy as life, and trying to tie up a million loose threads of a complex person is a job in and of itself.

So I don't have any "top 10 tips" or "3 things learned", from a year and a half of disease, loss, and all with political turmoil as the backdrop. It all seemed to constantly pile on. I've been spending some time trying to clear the pile and carry on. Bruce would never want me to just sit at home weeping. He'd want me up and out of the house with the cameras on. He'd want me creating as much photography as I can, and to keep doing all the creative things I always do. He'd want me to continue the work I do with Camp Bravo, which he was a big part of as well.

There's a keep-it-going rule I'm implimenting here. I can get stuck in the grief, and the enormity of trying to manage an entire photo studio's worth of stuff left behind. But I have to keep going. Even as I type this last sentence, I feel Bruce poking my shoulder and urging me to get up and go about the day.

I came across a letter via Austin Kleon's blog that resonated with my feelings today as I wrote this post. From the blog The Red Hand Files by Nick Cave, his thoughts on grief:

"I feel the presence of my son, all around, but he may not be there. I hear him talk to me, parent me, guide me, though he may not be there. He visits Susie in her sleep regularly, speaks to her, comforts her, but he may not be there. Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake. These spirits are ideas, essentially. They are our stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity. Like ideas, these spirits speak of possibility. Follow your ideas, because on the other side of the idea is change and growth and redemption. Create your spirits. Call to them. Will them alive. Speak to them. It is their impossible and ghostly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jettisoned; better now and unimaginably changed."

A few weeks ago, my friend Lisa Bierman staged a new theatre piece in the 92-year-old carousel house on the Santa Monica Pier called Club Friendship. I've seen a few immersive theatre experiences in my time, but this was one of the least expected spaces I'd ever expect to see a play in. It wasn't really a play as much as it was an evening of contributions from friends and collaborators. There were scenes, music, monologue pieces...all taking place in various locations around the carousel.

It made me very happy to be asked back by Lisa to photograph the evening.

The audience got to sit on the floor, stand around the actors, or even sit on bar stools as part of the scenes.

There was so much to love about this show but hardly anything could beat the finale which had the entire audiance riding the old carousel to "Cherish" by Madonna.

This was a much needed positive and uplifting experience in a time when something like this is much needed.

I make it back every year...Camp Bravo is my home in the woods for a week every summer. I've posted on Bravo before, but basically it just fills up my tank with inspiration and joy. And every summer it's as if my tank is on "E" right as I make my way up the mountain to our host campsite, Camp de Benneville pines near Angelus Oaks, California.

From the few snapshots I got this year, Camp Bravo looks like your average summer camp. We have a lot of those camp things that kids love, but we are mainly a performing arts camp. Our emphasis is on collaboration and creativity, rather than auditions and putting up a show.

No show. No auditions. No pressure on the kids. We mainly hold three or four workshops, plus activities, each day. It's theatre training from morning 'till evening.

We have some amazing campers, and the folks who keep it all going are these crazy camp counselors (see above images). I just love these guys and they keep me young in many, many ways.

There are a few hundred more images I could post, but please enjoy these few.

Our summer season is pretty much over, but if you feel like showing some support for this little non-profit (founded in 1995!) head over to our website!